Olivia's Reflections Pictures

Last year, Olivia did really well in her school's Reflections art contest. She drew a picture and made it to state (but didn't place there). She loves drawing, coloring, writing, taking pictures, etc. She has written soooo many books (most of which are so random that they make me laugh) and always has some sort of project she's working on.

This year, Reflections had a theme of "Diversity means..." and she had to come up with something to reflect that. Now, a lot of 7 year olds don't really understand the concept of "diversity" so I had to come up with a way to explain it to her. I told her that if all the trees were green and leafy and looked the same and grew the same, etc, that the world would be pretty boring. Sure, the trees themselves would be pretty, but there would be nothing different about them to give variety to what we see. We talked about how there are different types of trees and colors and shapes and it makes the world beautiful that way. She understand what it is now, but wanted to take a nature picture to show this off.

We took a few treks to Steilacoom Park and the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, and then chose her best picture. I was nervous letting her use my nice Canon DSLR, but she put the strap around her neck and I showed her how to turn the lens to zoom in and out, how to hold it properly and how to take the pictures. She did great! I reminded her to look in the camera and when she saw what she wanted in the window, to press the shutter. FYI- all the following are her pictures, unaltered.

Steilacoom Park:

Nisqually Wildlife Refuge:



In the end we chose the one at the very top, put it in photoshop and added her definition of diversity. She won first in her school for her grade, but lack of a district committee forced the contest to end there. She was happy with her project and her trophy, so that's all that matters!